43-year-old Tom Brady won his 7th Super Bowl last night. If there is one wrestler who knows about performing on the biggest stage in his industry at an older age, it is Shawn Michaels. HBK was asked by SI.com about his WrestleMania 25 match with The Undertaker recently. At the time, Michaels was 43-years-old too, just like Brady is now.
“Your age, that number, it drives you,” said Michaels. “Before that match, Undertaker and I acknowledged that people on the card were younger, faster and even better, so we tapped into our strength. We harnessed experience, 20 years of a backstory, and focused on what we did best.”
“I know the two worlds are very different, but we knew how to tell the story and Brady knows how to win the game,” HBK continued. “If Brady is great on Sunday, it’s not going to be because of his scrambling ability or long runs. He’s going to have to play to the best of his ability, doing what he does best. That was the same premise behind what I did, which wasn’t X’s and O’s like football. I knew, in order to be great, I had to play into the storytelling aspect of wrestling.”
Shawn Michaels On Deciding To Retire
HBK would later say he made the decision to retire in the build-up to his match with The Undertaker at WrestleMania 25. The following year, HBK would wrestle the Undertaker at WrestleMania 26 again, but this time with his career on the line. HBK would lose and not wrestle again until Crown Jewel in 2018.
“I can’t even remember who it was, but like a month before WrestleMania 25 asked how old my boy was. I said he was nine and the guy said, ‘Wow, halfway gone.’ He said he was halfway to 18 and when he’s 18 he’s gone. That blew me away… He’s halfway gone and I’m not going to miss that,” Michaels said to ESPN.
